Wednesday, 16 October 2013

If there's one topic that gets humanists excited it's religion. Odd, really, as we're supposed to have left it behind. But religion is more than a collection of superstitions, rules and peculiar habits. Religions have been integral parts of most past and current societies. Religion matters both for its influence on individuals and the way it shapes societies.

So here is a book that deals with the social dimension: Big Gods: How religion transformed co-operation and conflict. Ara Norenzayan Princeton University Press, 2013.

Norenzayan's thesis is that the great monotheisms became dominant because they enabled societies to become bigger and thus able to dominate their competitors. The imperial and expansionist histories of Christianity and Islam, though not of Judaism, certainly support this view though earlier large empires didn't seem to need it.

But, for me, Norenzayan's most interesting points relate to the step after monotheism. He says that strong state institutions, such as police, can substitute for the all-seeing Jehovah God. A few societies, mostly in Scandinavia, have outgrown God and their people behave well without his presence. They have, he says, "climbed the ladder of religion and then kicked it away".

In the UK religious belief is in free-fall but we have not achieved the Scandinavian Utopia. Perhaps the truth is a bit more complex than Norenzayan thinks.

I've argued before that scientific method is applicable to much more than the subjects of the traditional hard and soft sciences. At least some aspects of history, human geography, social policy and morality are susceptible to empirical research. If you doubt this I suggest you look at the way that Steven Pinker uses data to test Kant's theories in Better Angels of our Nature.

One of the approaches used by would-be theorists is to look for cycles in history. Hegel, Marx and Toynbee all did so with decidedly mixed results. Now Peter Turchin, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, has joined their ranks. Turchin claims that societies show 2-300 year cycles and that just three factors - economic output per head, the balance of labour supply and demand and attitudes to wealth redistribution - are enough to explain social evolution. Indeed, he says that his equations exactly match real wage rates since 1930.

I don't know if Turchin is right but his predictions are quantitative and can be tested. That's science.

Roger Bingham quotes Atkins review 'With hard work and even the possibility of progress dismissed, Dr Behe waves his magic wand, discards the scientific method, and launches into his philosopher's stone of universal explanation: it was all designed. Presenting this silly, lazy, ignorant, and intellectually abominable view -- essentially discarding reason and invoking that first resort of the intellectually challenged (that is, God) -- he present what he thinks is the most wondrous of theories, that the only way of achieving complexity is by design. There we see Dr. Behe dangling from his petard, proclaiming his "science" of intelligent design, while not troubling to seek the regulation of that awesome monitor of scientific enterprise, peer review.'

Peter Atkins says 'Intelligent design is a scientific abomination [...] it is a representation of intellectual laziness driven by the desire to turn as many other countries as possible into Theocracies [...] intelligent design is so alien to the scientific spirit [...] science is hard work, unlike the intelligent designers, scientists aren't sliding down hills on tabogans, they are climbing mountain peaks.'

Peter Atkins answers the Templeton Organisation question 'Does the Universe have a purpose?'

"No. In the absence of evidence, the only reason to suppose that it does is sentimental wishful thinking and sentimental wishful thinking, which underlies all religion, is an unreliable tool for the discovery of truth of any kind.

The extension of analogies is another tool that accompanies wishful thinking in the toolboxes of the credulous. That an intricate mechanism, such as an engine or even a spoon, is commonly associated with a purpose cannot be taken to be evidence that the universe as a whole is associated with a purpose, any more than the existence of a cheetah implies that it has been designed with a purpose in mind. Cheetahs have evolved by the bloody, directionless, unguided processes of evolution: they have not been provided for the purpose of killing antelopes.

Similarly, the universe has evolved over its 14 billion years of current existence by the directionless, unguided processes that are manifestations of the working out of physical laws: it has not been made for the purpose of providing platforms to enable cheetahs to stalk their prey or humans to generate great art or to entertain delusions. That we do not yet understand anything about the inception of the universe should not mean that we need to ascribe to its inception a supernatural cause, a creator, and therefore to associate with that creator's inscrutable mind a purpose, whether it be divine, malign, or even whimsically capricious.

Theologians typically focus on questions that they have invented for their own puzzlement. Some theologians are perplexed by the nature of life after death, a notion they have invented without a scrap of evidence.

Some are mystified by the existence of evil in a world created by an infinitely loving God, another notion that theologians have invented but which dissolves into nothing once it is realized that there is no God. The question of cosmic purpose is likewise an invented notion, wholly without evidential foundation, and equally dismissible as patently absurd.

We should not regard as great the questions that have been invented solely for the sake of eliciting puzzlement.

I regard the existence of this extraordinary universe as having a wonderful, awesome grandeur. It hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless. To project onto it our human-inspired notion of purpose would, to my mind, sully and diminish it."

Does the Universe have a purpose? No! says Peter Atkins ... a lot of theology is grappling with phantoms. Theologians have invented this almost self consistent subject which has no contact with physical reality and invent questions that they taunt humanity with. eg 'why has the universe got a purpose?' or 'Why does theodicy explain the problem of evil?' ... I could propose that there is a belt of planets between Mars and Earth which has no effect on the orbits of the known planets - great for after dinner gossip but not for serious consideration'.

Thursday, 20 June 2013

Last week's New Scientist reminds me that crime is not random. Criminals, victims and the times and places of crimes are all much more likely to follow a Pareto distribution ('20% of the villains commit 80% of the crimes') than a random distribution.

This is hardly a new idea. Police officers and criminologists know about habitual offenders and the likelihood of violence outside pubs on Saturday nights. So far so obvious. Yet police forces have been reluctant to apply these insights systematically. And the public still like to see patrols on their streets - even if their streets see little crime. (Which is, in any case, not actually reduced by random patrols.)

Just as some kinds of people are more likely to become criminals than others (men rather than women, young men rather than older ones just for a start) so some people and properties are more likely to become victims. It makes good sense to at least ensure that those concerned know of the enhanced risk and understand what they could do about it. For civil liberty reasons there should be no criticism of those who do not adjust their behaviour but many people will be only to happy to fit better locks and keep out of dangerous areas.

In fact the evidence about crime if often counter-intuitive. Most people believe that crime is rising and that primitive societies are more peaceful than ours. Neither is true. In the UK, for instance, violence, criminal damage and burglary have all fallen since 2006. Theft, exceptionally, fell until 2009 but then rose.

As humanists we should ask for evidence whenever people say silly things about crime.

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

This is the draft of the first chapter of a book sent to Stephen Law to make comments on. Add YOUR comments here on Stephen Laws' blogspot. Please remember to say you heard about this request for comments via Humanists4Science.

What are science and reason?

Humanists expound the virtues of science and reason. But what are science and reason? And we should we think it wise to rely on them?

By science, I shall mean that approach to finding out about reality based on the scientific method. This is a method that was fully developed only a few hundred years ago. Science, as I’ll use the term here, is a comparatively recent invention, its development owing a great deal to 16th and 17th Century thinkers such as the philosopher Francis Bacon(1561-1626).

So what is the scientific method? Here’s a rough sketch. Scientists collect data through observation and experiment. They formulate hypotheses and broader theories about the nature of reality to account for what they observe. Crucially, they then test their theories. Scientists derive from their theories predictions that can be independently checked by observation.

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Did you know that "lower heart rates are a better indicator of criminal behaviour than smoking is of lung cancer"? Nor me, yet this is a key point in understanding the biological, often genetic, origins of crime.

Most humanists, I guess, think of crime as a response to bad circumstances. We don't like to call people evil because that sounds religious and because it sounds incurable. Yet there's lots of evidence to implicate the effects of the physical environment (eg lead poisoning) and, more controversially, genes as causes of crime.

Humanists should be guided by the evidence so its worth looking at NS's review of The Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

All the parties want to "protect front-line policing", see for example this. It seems that everyone wants more policing. But why?

Crime in the UK has been falling for over ten years. It’s long been known that this is not primarily due to either policing levels or policing tactics. Many explanations have been suggested but there’s now a growing acceptance (articles in Mother Jones and the Guardian) that the real cause of the decline may be the removal of lead from petrol.

Lead is a poison known to damage children’s brains. It’s not much of a stretch to believe that is causes dyslexia and problems with impulse control – the very problems that underlie much crime.Of course we’ll need a police force for as long as there is crime; and that’s probably as long as there are human beings. Human society demands a balance between individual initiative, even greed, and social responsibility. We don’t always get this right either as individuals or as societies and when individuals get it wrong we need laws, courts, police and, sometimes, prisons.

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About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S isfor humanists with an active interest in science.We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Jim Al-Khalili (BHA President)

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Dick Taverne

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

David Papineau on Materialism

'Our world is a fully material world. We don’t need to go outside Physics to understand the constitution of the Universe. Anything non-material would be epiphenomena and could never have any effect on the material world.' David Papineau (video) on Materialism

Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President) on Scientific Method

'Scientific method is a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.' (Photo: Chris Street, 2006)

Peter Atkins (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The scientific method is the only reliable method of achieving knowledge. It displaces ignorance without destroying wonder.'

'Science can deal with all the serious questions that have troubled mankind for millennia' Peter Atkins

'My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate." Peter Atkins

Stephen Fry (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Reason is almost akin to superstition, ... reason must be tested, testing is the very basis of science.'

Matt Ridley (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it.'

Stephen Law (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Empirical science is possibly the only tool ... for understanding the world around us'.

Lewis Wolpert (BHA Vice President) on Scientific Method

'Science is the best way to understand the world, for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.'

Harry Kroto (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The methods of science are manifestly effective, having made massive humanitarian contributions to society. It is this very effectiveness which the purveyors of mystical philosophies attack, because they recognise in it the chief threat to the belief-based source of their power and financial reward.'